3/17/10

Getting Some New Ideas

We obviously need to have the egg come down much more slowly, so here's the current plan:

We encased the egg in a large, colorful plastic Easter eggshell (like for egg hunts) with its very own streamer. The rest of the rocket is rigged to come down with a parachute. There is nothing in the rules that says the rocket can't come down in two pieces, we only need a streamer on the egg capsule. So the egg capsule/streamer assembly is its own separate entity inside the recovery bay. To ensure that it comes out of the tube upon ejection, we stashed the parachute above the egg capsule so when it deploys it pulls the system out of the recovery bay.

I did some drop tests from a tree today, and it fell 19 feet in 1.42 seconds. That should be more than enough. v=d/t, v=19/1.42 = 13.4 ft/s, t = d/v, t = 825/13.4 = 61 seconds. We're shooting for 40-45 seconds. If it's over, that's GOOD, because it's easier to be under than over when it comes to flight duration with streamer recovery.

Another thing I tried to increase drag was to fold the streamer like an accordian and tie knots in the creases with thread to hold the shape, as in figure 3. This exposes a lot more surface area, plus it flutters better. It should be great.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

5 comments:

TARC Student Manager said...

Um, I think you should read the rules before you try that.
Our team had an entire meeting where the goal was to find something about our rocket that was not in compliance with the rules.
Good luck!

Anonymous said...

check out your articles about painting the rocket
Matthew

Anonymous said...

we did read the rules TARC Student Manager

Anonymous said...

Dear anonymous,
sewing seams into your streamer is against the rules.
Next time dubbel check the rules.
TARC Student

DTH Rocket said...

Yes, we read the rules extensively and this is all okay. In fact, we even contacted TARC, and what we did is okay. Maybe you should double check your spelling before you start making accusations about attention to detail!

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